A collection of healthy recipes that taste too good to be good for you, but they are!
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Sunday, May 31, 2009

Broccoli and Potato “Cream” Soup

(this soup is not a beauty contestant but tastes delicious)

Last week at cooking class our topic was soup. This class got my mind swirling thinking of different soups I could make that would be healthy.

Broccoli is a very popular vegetable at my house. We always have a minimum of one five pound bag of broccoli from Costco in our freezer at all times. I love the taste of broccoli and I love that this little cruciferous vegetable is a potent cancer fighter. I try to include broccoli in our meals whenever I can. Broccoli was the starting point for my soup tonight.

I added the cauliflower to the soup for additional cruciferous punch and to reduce the overall amount of potato in the soup. When the cauliflower is pureed it behaves like potato. I add cauliflower to most potato dishes I make for this reason.

I roasted the potatoes to give them a little texture. I didn’t want the potatoes to disintegrate into the soup.

The garlic oil was used to give the soup a little background garlic flavor.

I added the lemon so that the acid would lift the flavor in the dish without adding more salt. I try to keep our daily sodium level below the recommended 2200 mg’s a day.

Roast cauliflower and broccoli on a half sheet pan for approximately 20 minutes, until cooked through and slightly tinged on the edges. On a separate sheet pan toss potatoes with one tablespoon of garlic flavored olive oil and a pinch of salt and roast until they are done (the exact time will depend on the pieces of the potato and your oven) mine took 5 minutes longer than the broccoli and cauliflower.

While the veggies roast cook the diced onion with the remaining tablespoon of garlic oil until it is translucent.

When the cauliflower and broccoli are cooked, put them in your blender (reserving a few broccoli tops for texture) along with the water and puree until smooth. Add the pureed vegetables and reserved broccoli tops to the pan containing the onions and turn the heat to low. Add the soymilk and salt and heat soup to desired temperature. Just before serving add the lemon juice and taste the soup for salt and pepper, and adjust as desired.

This is a very thick soup, almost more of stew. It has a nice gentle broccoli flavor with a hint of lemon and garlic in the background. I liked the texture the potatoes gave the soup. If you wanted to add more textural variation you could finish the soup with a few toasted whole wheat croutons. The only thing I didn’t like was the color of the soup. I would have preferred the soup to be a more vibrant green. Next time I will add a little pureed raw spinach at the very end to brighten the green color. If you didn't mind the extra calories a little drizzle of a beautiful emerald green parsley oil would be a nice addition before serving.